I am looking for a tax sheltered or tax minimizing approach to investing in stocks for my kids education. I want the assets in my name, which rules out Education IRA's (2 reasons - 1. At age 18, the foolish ones could decide they would rather have the car.... and 2. The FAF penalizes kids assets much higher than parents assets when determing any eligibility.)My wife and I max out our IRA's every year, and would like to put aside additional funds for the education.

Looked at VUL's, but the freight seems real, real steep, in spite of the "after tax numbers" workup.

Right now, have the money in Index 500's, low annual capital gains since they don't churn, etc. Is there another more sophisticated approach that I can implement relatively inexpensively that helps me avoid taxes, particularly at that point in the future when I start redeeming shares and paying on gains?